Recycling Plastic in India, with Mia Bowyer
From a corporate job, to recycling plastic in India and working with brands who want to become more sustainable: meet Mia.
Mia’s story is equal parts unconventional and inspiring. An ocean lover since childhood, she has always had a deep respect and admiration for the earth. While working in the corporate world, Mia was constantly coming back to the idea of plastic - so much so that she was dreaming about it. And so she decided to quit life and head abroad, where she became a garbage lady (in Mia’s words) with Plastics For Change in India. Keep reading to find out why plastic matters to Mia, how it is currently - and should be - recycled, and her advice for people hoping to reduce their use of this valuable resource.
What about plastic compelled you to leave a comfortable job and head abroad?
I have been an ocean lover since I was a kid. We grew up by the sea, so with that came a deep connection to and respect for nature. One day I got back from Aldi and stared at my shopping bags, thinking this is insane: where does it all go, if only 9% of plastic gets recycled? I started learning that when we put plastic in the garbage bin, a large proportion of it heads to Asia where it’s put in the ocean or burned. I started watching all these YouTube videos about the plastic waste world and having dreams about oceans filled with plastic. So after a while, I decided to quit my job at Microsoft and go overseas to try and do something about it.
Where did you end up?
It started off pretty randomly - I was living in a village in Indonesia where we were trying to build houses out of plastic. It was really hard to get anything across the line, it was a very disorganised project and I wasn’t using my skills to help, so it was a massive struggle for me. Then I found out about Plastic For Change, which is an organisation that connects brands like the Body Shop and Unliver to ethically recycled plastic. That’s when my whole world changed. I moved to India and took up this job. I was the first marketing person they ever had, and it was the most wild, amazing experience.
While I was living there for two years, we were able to mobilise a group of people called ‘waste pickers’ who are often shunned from society. We formalised their employment and worked with World Fair Trade to verify this plastic supply chain. Waste pickers all started becoming recycling entrepreneurs, and recycling the plastic in a way that can be used for brands. Plastic is very valuable as it’s made from oil, and there was a plastic mafia that would threaten to chop us up and turn us into soup because we were helping vulnerable communities get fair treatment and equal wages for collecting it.
Today as a result of that project, if you go to the Body Shop, the plastic we recycled in India can be found in about 25% of their products. I was a garbage lady and I loved it.
How does the plastic industry operate - and why is this a concern?
So when you put plastic in your garbage bin, it goes on a vacation. It either travels to a landfill in Australia (which is only a small amount, as land here is so valuable) or is recycled (9% or less) - and then a huge amount is sent illegally to countries like Cambodia and India, where there are a few under the table deals done. Plastic ends up in family homes and places where there is no way to actually recycle it, so it ends up being burned, which causes cancer and micro-plastics to go into the air.
People talk about micro-plastics in the ocean, but the ones in the air are way worse, and it only takes a couple of weeks for these to travel to Australia. The world is a big washing machine. We’re all sharing the same water, and we’re also sharing the same air. You’d be surprised by how much plastic you have in your body right now. Humans on average consume a credit card size’s plastic every week which can come from our sea, salt, and air.
What advice would you give to people who hoping to cut back their plastic consumption?
The core things that you can do as a consumer is to reduce plastic when you grocery shop, have a grandma mindset, and try reusables. These are great places to start.
Reduce plastic when you grocery shop. For example, you can choose a store that doesn’t have plastic packaging, like source bulk foods or Asian grocers which have lots of loose lentils, and noodles. If that’s not a financial choice for you, you can bring your own bags, or choose loose vegetables. I always use mushroom bags for everything so when I get to the counter, they think I’m buying heaps of mushrooms.
When you’re making decisions, think about what your grandparents were doing. We don’t need to overcomplicate it. Our grandparents were quite resourceful. They would cook a lot at home, buy the food that they need and reuse it, and wrap bread in a tea towel instead of putting it in a plastic bag. Go back to basics and think like your grandparents when it comes to waste. People look at the waste-less lifestyle at the micro, but it’s about your mindset and your approach.
Try reusables. I used to carry around a kit which had a cup, a box, a straw and a fork. Having this was such a game-changer. A lot of people are quite into the keep-cup lifestyle as it’s quite accessible, and this is sort of like an extension of that. So for example, if there comes a time when you’re ordering a salad or burrito, you can have a plastic plate hanging out in your bag to use. The whole mentality is phone, keys, wallet, reusables. Implementing that is awesome and easy to do.
Where do big brands come into this? How do we hold them accountable?
I think it’s very important for us to change our behaviours as a practice of respect for the earth and to be a better human. Being sustainable is almost like being polite - it’s a part of being a good person. But where this all gets really effective is with the businesses who produce the plastic. I think that the best and coolest change is when people get together and say wtf - I’ve been using your shampoo for eight years and you’re not doing anything about the turtles?
Be a Karen, a keyboard warrior, and someone who tells brands that they’re not doing good enough. They listen. I’ve seen brands who were absolute polluters do a complete 360 and switch to recycled, Fairtrade plastic and change their supply chains. This is because they want that social proof and know their consumers care about the environment. I’ve also sat in boardrooms with businesses who don’t know what to do as people are trolling them online. Their audience is like what the hell are you doing about climate change?
At the end of the day, the customer is always right. In the same way that Hubspot will remove a feature if their users aren’t happy with it, it’s not that unimaginable for every brand in the world to use recycled plastic. It’s possible, and we need to get on their case about it! Brands created their products for us. So if their customers complain about something enough, they have to change.
How do we know which brands are recycling properly and avoid greenwashing?
Know your plastics. We’re going to get nerdy right now. There are so many types of plastic in one object. For example, to recycle each type of plastic in a chip packet, you need to extract the molecules away from each other and separate the different layers. As the plastic is mixed up together, no one really does this. The only plastics that commonly get recycled are the clear PETE and HDPE types which are used for soft drink bottles, containers, shampoo bottles, and the like. So if you buy a chip packet and it has a 1 symbol which stands for PETE plastic, it probably means that only a small proportion of this plastic is being recycled.
In the same way that you can avoid food based on nutritional info, you can look at a label and tell how much of the product’s plastic will be recycled. Instead of looking at the marketing slogan on the front, navigate the labelling system. It could also mean going for clear plastics which are more likely to be recycled instead of chip packets and colourful + black plastics which are really, really hard to recycle because they’re made from so many plastic types.
Don’t listen to the brand’s social media accounts. Look at the types of plastic they are using, and how much of it is actually being recycled.
Do you have any final thoughts or advice for those reading?
I’m so passionate about plastic because it is everywhere - it’s in our food, it’s in our oceans, it’s on our phone cases. Plastic is a valuable resource and should be treated like one.
It’s so simple: reduce, reuse, recycle. Be vocal and get brands to use recycled plastic, keep the circular economy going, go as natural as possible and reduce your plastic consumption, and get to know the labelling system. It’s fascinating how fixable the plastic problem is.
To learn more about Mia’s work with plastic, or her social media agency One Earth Marketing, book in a time to catch up here.